Claiming wireless USB products will hit stores by Christmas 2005, chip-making giant Intel claimed at the Developer Forum here this week that the protocol would “rapidly” make Bluetooth wireless protocol history.
Intel said they expect the wireless USB protocol to be finished by the end of this month and the access controller specification approved by the end of 2005. “In the next twelve months,” Intel senior fellow Kevin Kahn told the Developer Forum, “we will see wireless USB products in the retail sector.”
Kahn, in fact, demonstrated a USB dongle fitting a standard USB2 port to make any machine with USB ports capable of using the projected device, significant in light of over two hundred companies reportedly due to bring forth wireless USB devices.
Bluetooth is a somewhat popular wireless handheld protocol, but the technology has run into consumer and analytical criticism over compatibility limits and problems. USB, on the other hand, is well enough understood and is considered by some analysts to be the most successful high-tech communications interface in the world now.
"The general consumer doesn't have a clue," Intel technology strategist Jeff Ravencort told reporters. "Thirty percent of returns to technology retailers are because of set-up problems. If it isn't easy to set up this isn't going to happen."
